Tesla co-founder says car wastes energy while parked
By Donald Melanson 
posted October 16th 2008 11:37AM
posted October 16th 2008 11:37AM
Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard has never been one to mince words about the company or car he helped create, and it doesn't look like that's about to change, with him now taking advantage of his blog to spread the word about "one little thing wrong" with the car. Apparently, like some other Tesla drivers, he noticed that the ESS coolant pump seemed to be running all the time, even when it had been parked and left off for a long time. After a bit more investigation, Eberhard determined that the coolant pump and support electronics drew a hefty 14 kilowatt-hours in four days just sitting in his garage, which translates to 1,278 kWh per year, or the rough equivalent of two large refridgerators. As Eberhard points out, that could also have some pretty severe implications for the life of the pump and battery, and even the car's stated watt-hours per mile. For Tesla's part, it says the pump will shut off, but only when the battery is half-way discharged, which is a state that some with a short commute, like Eberhard, may rarely see.
[Via AutoblogGreen]
[Via AutoblogGreen]
yeah, OK so maybe "corporate slug or an idiot" was a little harsh. But I still think you are way off with your original comment, especially the "people need to stop slamming the major car companies and looking for conspiracies [...] I do believe it's the direction to go but battery technology is not up to par" part.
Obviously I was exaggerating with 1 week and totally made up the 1/100th figure, but really I could have said "last year" or "2002" instead of "1 week." The point is that alternative (I said alternative, not electric) vehicles would already be here in full force if the auto manufacturers (a) weren't in bed with Big Oil, (b) gave a shit about the environment, and (c) stopped recreating old technology in new packages in an effort to lazily chase low-hanging $fruit$). Doesn't Ford or GM realize that they are tanking right now??? Doesn't Ford or GM realize that if they could simply beat foreign car manufacturers to the alternative-fuel finish line that they would once again reign supreme and regain the trust/admiration of U.S. citizens??? Yet both companies for years have written-off and disbanded various alternative fuel projects. Only now, with the economy in the shit, gas at outrageous prices, and American car manufacturers near bankruptcy have we seen any movement whatsoever.
The government also plays a HUGE role in this for the following reasons:
(a) our dependency on foreign oil has made us slaves to the most volatile place on earth, a place Americans should have no reason to ever visit much less occupy. This dependency has cost us trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and facilitated many of the anti-American regimes that we fight against today. Any rational government would invest thoroughly in alternatives to find ways to get the hell out of there and never look back. We have not. Why? You be the judge.
(b) America spends $125Billion on gasoline & oil combined each year, over $100B of it from the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Dept. of Energy gets $16B per year, making it one of the least funded major federal programs in the nation. Moreover, the Dept. of Energy itself has not been nearly progressive enough in the search for better solutions.
(c) America has developed non-fossil-fuel ways to efficiently power just about every imaginable device and vehicle, yet consumer cars are not prevalent. Must be the battery technology? Huh? I refuse to believe that. And even if it's true, see (b) above for the reason why.
(d) Hey Washington, how about some stricter taxes/environmental regs. on Big Oil? Put some money back in the economy and clean up our air, land, and lakes? What's that? Big Oil owns Congress? Oh, right.
That's my 2 cents. I suppose the penguin and I will have to agree to disagree on this.
Chrysler, Ford and General Motors have had alternative energy vehicle platforms in research and development for years. Some of these vehicles are running on the roads right now being driven by independent testers. But it all comes back to one glaring fact: It costs a lot of money to convert to these alternatives.
Whether you like it or not, the government is not going to hand these things off to you and neither are the auto companies. YOU will have to pay for it, and gasoline is still cheap. It is a free market economy.
Chrysler, Ford and General Motors are all too aware that they are in serious financial trouble. Guess what? The entire world is in serious financial trouble! Even Toyota is hurting right now. Beating the foreign manufacturers is tricky because it's a matter of matching product with demand. The logistics are more complicated than simply being first. This was what really killed the electric car, not a conspiracy by GM and the oil companies. I hope electric car 2.0 (Volt) is the right car at the right time. I believe it is.
Our dependency on foreign oil is bad. I agree with that. But it's a function of cost. That's it. No conspiracy. The cost of the alternative fuels, the cost of the needed change of infrastructure to support these alternatives, etc. Every alternative out there is going to cost you more one way or another. But as oil prices rise, so does our interest in alternatives.
The biggest problem with what you're saying is that you already admit that you exaggerated information. Okay, fine. We all shoot our mouths from time to time. And you aren't wrong for asking the questions you ask. But I submit to you that if you don't have facts to back up the conspiracy theories you're wasting energy of your own, and that serves little purpose in the quest for solving problems.
"slaves to the most volatile place on earth"
1. Less than 20% of our oil comes from the Middle East. Maybe you were referring to Venezuela? Even lower percent. Our main importers are Mexico and Canada. Mexico is not perfect but it's less volatile than, say, the gas escaping from your brain.
2. We are not "slaves" to anyone. You have no idea what slavery even is if you say that. Try to use a tiny measure of realism when you write. Exaggerating everything by 1,000 times just makes you look like a madman, which is probably fair.
"a place no one should ever visit"
1. I'll add xenophobia to your diagnosis.
2. There are so many incredible historic sights in the Middle East. Everyone should see them.
"This dependency has cost us trillions of dollars"
They do SELL the oil. They do not give it away. It might not be neighborly but it's called REAL LIFE. Try it.
"thousands of lives"
1. 60,000 people die in US auto accidents each year. That's about 70 years of war in Iraq.
2. How many lives are saved EACH DAY by gasoline-powered ambulances? Or helicopters? I bet it's more than the total US death count in the Iraq war. Sure, make an ambulance fleet electric, then never go more than 20 miles from a hospital. Great life.
"and facilitated many of the anti-American regimes that we fight against today"
1. We;'re fighting the Taliban and some scraps of Al-Queda. Iran by proxy. The Taliban is funded by heroin sales, Al-Queda is funded by private donation, and Iran is funded by oil. So you're already down to 33 percent.
2. Iran has no problem selling their oil to someone else. If we don't buy it, someone else will. They will get their oil money, as Saddam proved with the UN Oil-for-Food scandal. Oil is not sold by country, it's sold on a world market which doesn't discriminate between crude from Texas and crude from Tehran.
3. Reality is such an irritant.
"Any rational government would invest thoroughly in alternatives to find ways to get the hell out of there"
1. Is it our GOVERNMENT which purchases Middle-East oil? No, dipshit (fully warranted at this point). It's private, multinational companies. If you don't want their product, walk to work. No government is making you buy gasoline, it is not a political or legal requirement. We buy it from private businesses because it WORKS SO WELL.
2. Why is it the Government's job to save us from a product we love? Why must you rob every American to fund your private, misguided agenda? Battery cars will come when batteries work better, not before. No "Manhattan Project" recap can solve this huge, general, vague problem.
"America spends $125Billion on gasoline & oil combined each year, over $100B of it from the Middle East. "
1. Pure, unadulterated bullshit. Your total expense might be right but your Middle East percentage is comedic. You will always be "right" if you lie.
2. What should we spend this money on? Earplugs and dark glasses so we don't have to read or hear you? We spend this money because it's the cheapest form of portable energy by a factor of at least 4. It's the best possible use of this energy budget.
3. We do not have a Central Planning Committee here in the US (yet). We each buy what we choose to buy. You want to buy hay for your horse? We're NOT SLAVES, we're free. Buy hay. I'm buying gasoline because it WORKS SO WELL. I am not asking anyone else to conform to my agenda. They can change when they choose to. One at a time, not as slaves to the Politburo.
" the Dept. of Energy gets $16B per year, making it one of the least funded major federal programs in the nation."
1. So you're saying that 10% of our total fuel expenditures are used to pay the DOE? And that's underfunded? That's a nice, solid R&D budget percentage, about a 10:1 ratio.
2. See above comments on blaming the government for everything you choose to do, on being a slave versus being free. You are choosing slavery with every one of these sentences. "SAVE ME UNCLE SAM! I AM HELPLESS! USE MY NEIGHBOR'S MONEY TO SAVE ME!"
"America has developed non-fossil-fuel ways to efficiently power just about every imaginable device and vehicle"
1. Are you referring to bicycles when you say "every imaginable vehicle"? Because i can imagine airplanes, boats, trucks and cars are about 99.9 percent of our vehicles and they run on gasoline because it WORKS SO WELL.
2. Okay, here is where I quit. You are declaring a fantasy to be reality. You really should notify your patent attorney about your technological breakthroughs. At worst, you should build one of these secret vehicles.
Like everyone, I would LOVE To own a plug-in car. But it has to be a functional car, not a golf-cart with a big gear ratio and good styling. Battery charge density doubles about every 10 years. We need a factor of four improvement. That means workable electric cars are 20 years away.
Now shut up.
I think we could definitely make electric or hydrogen cars work if we had to. Like, if gas spiked to $25 a gallon and then ended up stabilizing at $15 then we would probably see some alternative fuel cars within 5 years that were practical. Like penguin and others have said, oil is just too cheap, too easy, too convenient and there is no reason to stop using it. For the average American to go out and buy a $60k electric car doesn't make sense. $60,000 buys 15,000 gallons of gas at $4 per gallon (more expensive than it actually costs now) and in my cavalier z24 that nets me approx. 375,000 miles of use. Even for my mother, who drives over 100k miles per year due to her job that would still be at least 3 years of gas paid for. For myself, which i only drive maybe 20k a year that would last me almost 19 years at my current rate. The point is, as others have said, gas is cheap, gas is cheap, gas is cheap and people of a free world do not spend extra money when a cheaper alternative is available.
LarryLarryLarry @ Oct 17th 2008 7:09AM
*long post*
I don't know if I would have put it quite that way. Perhaps a bit more diplomatically? :D But your points are good. Until people understand the logistics of the entire picture they'll be hopelessly "slaves" to the conspiracy theories and conjecture.
I'm pulling for alternative energy. I'm pulling for electric cars. But we have to be realistic. The technologies come as they become viable and affordable.
run that spell checker on "refridgerators"
Yeah well maybe if you replaced the refridgerators with some refrigerators the thing wouldn't waste so much energy.
I think any electric car up to date is wasting energy while parking just because it does not recharge the batery from "free" sources like sun.
Or two 75 watt bulbs running 24/7.
14,000 watts*hr / 96hrs = 145watts draw
It is very important to sponsor, buy and to help any developer and manufacturer of electric/air car, then later we can take part (or full) control over it.
Having the control over the developer and sales process then we must decide a non-functional design or a overexpensive price cost.
Also its important to bold the low autonomy, petty performance and limitage usage of such product.
Regards
Shell Chemical Co.
:-P
RIP Tesla. 2008-2008
This is what I don't get... it's one thing to say that, for one reason or another the tech is such that cooling has to be on even when the car is off. But Tesla says that the "pump will shut off, but only when the battery is half-way discharged". Why would level of charge in the battery matter to whether it needs cooling or not (certainly not at the half-way mark)? If it needs cooling at 80% it surely needs it still at 50%, and if it can go without cooling at 50% then why not turn it off at 80%?
Still, this does seem like a tech limitations that they'll be happy to correct as soon as they figure out how.
The problem is that if the car needs cooling even when off, that means it is generating heat even when off. Heat is energy, that means it is consuming energy even when off.
Why is the car consuming enough energy when off to produce enough heat to then need to take additional energy to run a cooling system to dissipate the heat?
And furthermore, why does this process stop after the battery is half flat? Is the car no longer heating up or is it no longer being cooled off? The latter would mean your car is damaging itself when left sitting unused with less than half battery capacity.
Thermostats, they're not just for refrigerators anymore.
Yeah yeah... electric cars... yeah, he's left the company and now he's being a douche...
But on a more serious note. How difficult it is to run a spell check on the article before you post it?
this is all just a scam to make people use gas
so... water-cooling is not an option? Or some other refrigerant or "Refridgerant" as is apparently now the term?
Would still love to have the car!
Read this response to energy policies...http://tobroketolaugh.com
"Refridgerator?" Dude, spell-check much?
All it should take is a software update of the cars internal electronics.
If it were that simple it wouldn't be an issue.
From the pic link:
"Maybe this constantly-running pump is an artifact of the temporary drive train in my car. Maybe it will shut off when not driving after Tesla finally installs my 1.5 drive train. I sure hope so, but the Tesla people have told me that it will run the same way with the 1.5 drive train."
It would seem that there is a much bigger problem here than software. It appears to be a design issue.
I don't know much about electric cars, but this makes sense to me.
The Roadster runs on a lithium ion battery, and lithium ion batteries last the longest when stored at a cool temperature and at 50% charge. (that's why people put unused lithium batteries in refrigerators at 50% charge).
This whole coolant pump running when above 50% sounds like a mean to drain the battery to 50% and keeping the battery cool, a feature to prolong battery life.
However, rather the wasted energy and the pump's lifespan is a good trade off for prolonged battery is hard to say.
I can't believe some people are actually defending this. Can you imagine what people would think if their gasoline car had to run its engine all night long to run a pump? Everyone makes it out like the Tesla's power system is run off of thin air. You need to pay for the electricity it is wasting, just like you'd have to pay for gas if your engine was running all night long. And the fact that this is supposed to help solve our energy problem is completely ridiculous considering its wasting electricity like that.
Telsa is DEAD, Dead, Dead.. No investors are going to support a company that has blown through four CEO's. Nobody is going to buy expensive cars in a Depression! The entire company resource pool is dedicated to fixing tens of millions of dollars of corporate mistakes. The company is all about repair of the past and nothing about the future. All of their technology is now "old-school" and they have been totally surpassed by www.myxpcar.com, www.smartusa.com, www.honda.comn, www.chevy.com, etc.. all of whom have faster, longer range, better cars for wayyyyy less money. They took a not-for-EV car and tried to add stuff to it.. all of the competitors are building EV's from the ground up and those listed above have value propositions Telsa cannot possibly get past.The owners are already trying to sell them to Nissan or Tata or Proton or anybody they can dump them on.
Tesla is having problems. all start up corporations do. I do agree with you that things are getting very shady within the company. I think Musk is an asshole but the rest of your statements are just plain ignorant. Do you have ANY idea what the tech behind the Tesla is? because if you did you would know that the hybrid solutions pushed by the other automakers pales in comparison to a full EV like the roadster. There is a reason why they are cheaper. I can tell how clueless you are because you even sited vaporware XP Car.... People can buy expensive cars in a depression. Just the same people that have $100000 of disposable income laying around. How the hell do you think Ferrari and Lamborghini stay afloat without having cars for the mainstream market? Also one more thing you are completely wrong if you think all they did was take a Lotus Elise and just threw a Battery in it...
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/03/04/busting-some-myths-tesla-vp-debunks-electric-elise/
Im mad you even listed Chevy up there and the smart for two... -_-
PS: For those saying we do not need EV's; OIL IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF CANCER! Read the warning on every gas pump. 90% of all cancer will disappear when oil is gone. Even if making electricity WAS terribly inefficient, which it isn't, It is worth 1000X inefficiency to get rid of CANCER!
oooooooooookay.....
I've never been comfortable with my hydrocarbon chemistry. Now I know why! Carbon causes cancer. Worse yet, cancer is actually composed of hydrocarbons!
I'm switching to burning silicon for my metabolism. Anyone care for a delicious wafer?
There is a lot of misinformation about EVs in these comments that is cleared up with a simple google search. Like this article:
http://www.lastgascar.com/the-5-biggest-electric-car-myths/
this guy lives across the street from me. cool dude.
Desolate1: Lotus's own senior staff, who work at ZAP and other Lotus staff who also attend car shows have stated that 60% of the Tesla is Lotus E. XP is NOT Vaporware, (a statement which can now get you sued for libel and slander by them because that is how the law works) because they have issued patents, pending patents, working parts of the car, a full team from Detroit, NASA and DOE, a factory that only costs $50M to build (When Tesla's costs $250M and will causes investors to not get their money back due to to the HIGH cost of production compared to XP and other cars who are doing it right) and a car that costs 2/3rds less with twice as many features as the Telsa. In a 1:1 shootout, XP Cars beat Telsa on every ROI metric, Period.
It's possible that the coolant sensor gets into a loop of some sort. Batteries running the coolant pump warm up, and as they do this, they are cooled by the coolant pump, but they are running the coolant pump, so they are still warming up.
This is the best comment ever.